


Red Flag Warning

by Koren M (CyberMathWitch)



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Mental Instability, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyberMathWitch/pseuds/Koren%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red is the color of the little girl who painted the walls and struck out at anyone who came near her because there was no way out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Flag Warning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> For Bob5, who has ~~tortured~~ blessed us with her Awesomely Inappropriate Hot Mess College AU Assassins, and no good deed should go ~~unpunished~~ unrewarded. ;D 
> 
> Thank you so much for taking us all along on that ride. I hope you enjoy this one!

Her dress is red. That's a warning sign. 

He's learned more about her in their ten years together than just how she likes her coffee or which side of the bed she prefers to sleep on. 

Natasha Romanov is infinitely more complicated than that. He isn't sure if the color code was something that happened by accident or if it was by design. He's never gotten up the nerve to ask her if she chose to create cues to help him protect himself, or if there's some kind of subconscious symbolism in her own mind that she echoes. It might be both. 

However it happened, he's smart enough, and has hung around long enough, to figure out that when she wears red, that means stand back unless he's in a mood to flirt with danger. 

(Real danger. The fun kind of danger is reserved for blue.)

Red is the color she chooses when her mask is bloody from enjoyment, rather than duty (black). Natasha-in-Red is the part of herself that maybe they did a little too good a job shaping back in the Red Room (red Red red). 

The first time he made the connection he was trapped in a hotel room with her and made the mistake of offering to help her get the blood out of her hair. She'd smiled, and then he'd ended up with blood on his throat (his own).

Red means hands off, sometimes it means she's barely holding it together, and he fucking hates when Fury assigns missions that remind her a little too much of "home". It takes her days or weeks (maybe months, if it's bad enough) to come back from them. She always does, she's strong, she's so very, very strong, but it eats him up inside to watch her do it and know he can't help her fight those demons.

Red is the color of the little girl who painted the walls and struck out at anyone who came near her because there was no way out.

Tonight, she's perfectly coordinated from her dress to her shoes, her lipstick and nails, all match the red streaked on her arms and across her face.

Normally he stays away from her when she's like this. He sleeps in a different room, because that's the safest thing to do, and he knows she'd never forgive herself is she really hurt him.

Tonight, however, the mission went to shit; he's angry at so many people he doesn't know where to begin, she's angry that the bad guys got the drop on them, and they're both still on dark and destructive adrenaline highs.

And she's flirting with him. The kind of flirting that says "I haven't decided if I'm going to fuck you or kill you."

Normally, he deflects. He defers, sometimes he even dissembles, because he knows what this is, what's really going on.

_"I have to find my way out, sometimes," she admitted one night after they'd gone round and round on the sparring floor, when she couldn't speak from all the rage. "I have to remember where the edges are, I have to decide all over again who I've chosen to be."_

_She was sprawled on her back, chest heaving from a round with a punching bag he thought would never end. When it finally did, his own chest had relaxed because the person looking back through her eyes at him was the Natasha he knew._

_"If I ever... you're safe, did you know that?" she rose up on her elbows and he dropped down onto the floor beside her._

_"I'm not... I wasn't worried about you hurting me, Tasha."_

_Her eyes narrowed. "You should be. That's not what I meant."_

_"Then I sure as hell don't know what you mean."_

_"I trust you. I trust that you won't let me hurt you, or anybody else. I need that sometimes, when I come down. If I go too deep. I need to know that no matter how far I push you, you're strong enough to push back and stand between me and everyone else if it comes to that._

_"I trust you to stand between me and myself. You're my failsafe."_

_Three years later, they stand over the bloody ruins of a party and the body of a young woman near to Natasha's age. One of his arrows is lodged in her throat, although it had been Natasha's hand that had drawn the bow. "This," she whispers when she knows he's in close, "is what I meant."_

_He doesn't have to ask what she's referring to._

Even when he dodges, even when it pisses her off, she doesn't mind a few days later when she's come back down and they're both unscathed. 

But tonight, when she runs red-tipped, bloody fingers along the line of his shoulder, and smiles at him with a smile not entirely her own, he reaches out with his own bloody hands and pulls her close.

The light in her eyes isn't unlike how she looked earlier when she cut a bloody swath through the drug lord's body guards, although her smile has a different tilt to it. He imagines that he probably looks much like he did when he was picking off her pursuers from his ledge, with just a little more enjoyment and slightly less fear.

Only slightly. He's less scared for his own life than he is for hers.

*****

The next morning when he wakes up, there's blood streaked across the sheets and he can feel the scratches she left on his back, but he smiles anyway. He steps into the bathroom and is assaulted by the acrid burn of acetone and he watches her very carefully removing the last bit of red from her nails.

When they leave the hotel she's wearing jeans and a black tee-shirt under her favorite black jacket. Since they're alone, she indulges them both and laces her fingers through his as they walk away.


End file.
